Scratching the Learning Itch Part One

I have written about one of my passions which is teaching in “Scratching the Teaching Itch.” Another passion is learning.

I have always liked school. Looking back now I can see that I liked it not only for what I learned but because it was first, a refuge from the constant fighting going on at my house, and secondly, and probably more importantly at that time, it was, in contrast to my home, a place where I was noticed, praised and encouraged. The fact that I was learning was, back then, less important than the fact that I was competant and rewarded for being like that.

After Jim died and I plunged back into depression and grief, I had enough sense to listen to the friend who told me to talk to a grief therapist. Besides helping me work through and with my grief, she gave me one other very important piece of information… the University of Southern Mississippi waived the tuition fees for people 63 and over. She also gave me the phone number of the contact person and I called.

This young lady. Sandy, was wonderful. She told me exactly what I had to do, gave me a catalog and told me to pick a class, ANY class and she would do the rest. And she meant that. One thing I rather dreaded was that I had, as a non-degree student {hey, I had two of those and I didn’t need another} to get the permission of the instructor to attend his or her class. Sandy called the instructor and got permission, registered me while I was sitting right there in front of her desk {I had been dreading the long lines I remembered from registration},and even called the department that issued IDs and parking stickers for my car to find out when would be the best time for me to go over and get these things done so the lines were short. {It turned out to be 8 am which neither surprised nor bothered me; I am a morning person}

And so, there I was, at the age of 64 registered in a class called Fiction Writing with people the same age as my younger son.

To be continued…